Beirut, Lebanon:
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Sunday broadcast an audio recording of slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, just over two weeks after an Israeli airstrike killed him in southern Beirut.
“We count on you… to defend your people, your families, your nation, your values and your dignity, and to defend this holy and blessed land and this honorable people,” said Nasrallah, who was killed on September 27 . he was reportedly recorded addressing fighters from the Iran-backed group during a military maneuver.
Many other senior commanders of the movement have also been killed.
The Israeli military said about 115 projectiles fired by Hezbollah had entered Israeli territory on Sunday afternoon.
A Hezbollah fighter was captured Sunday as he emerged from a tunnel in southern Lebanon, the Israeli military said, the first such announcement since the ground offensive began.
‘Shocking violations’
United Nations peacekeepers on Sunday accused Israeli forces of breaching a gate and entering one of their positions in southern Lebanon.
It is the latest of a number of incidents reported by the UNIFIL mission since Thursday, with five peacekeepers previously injured.
“Around 4:30 a.m., while peacekeepers were in shelters, two IDF (Israeli military) Merkava tanks destroyed the main gate of the position and forcibly entered the position” in the Ramia area, before leaving 45 minutes later, the said peacekeeping force (UNIFIL). ).
On Saturday, several kilometers to the northeast, Israeli soldiers stopped and denied passage to a crucial UNIFIL logistics movement near Mais al-Jabal.
“We have asked the IDF for an explanation for these shocking violations,” UNIFIL said.
The Israeli military later said that a tank “backed up several meters into a UNIFIL post” while “under fire” and tried to evacuate wounded soldiers.
Netanyahu had earlier on Sunday called on the UN chief to remove peacekeepers in southern Lebanon from harm’s way after the mission rejected requests to give up their positions.
He said the peacekeepers’ presence “had the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned Netanyahu’s call, saying it “represents a new chapter in the enemy’s approach to not meeting international” standards.
UNIFIL, with around 9,500 troops, is in southern Lebanon under the long-standing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which stipulated that only the Lebanese Army and UN peacekeepers could be deployed in southern Lebanon.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday called it “absolutely unacceptable” that UN troops are “deliberately targeted by the Israeli forces.”
Lebanon calls for a ceasefire
Earlier Sunday, Israeli warplanes also hit a 100-year-old mosque in the village of Kfar Tibnit, near the border, NNA said.
“It was an important place because families gathered on the square next to it (the mosque) on special occasions,” Mayor Fuad Yassin told AFP.
Hamas sparked the ongoing war in Gaza with the deadliest attack ever on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The number also includes hostages who died in captivity.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 42,227 people, the majority of them civilians, have been killed since Israel’s military campaign there began. The UN recognizes that these figures are reliable.
In support of Hamas, Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel last October, leading to an almost daily firefight until the war escalated in late September.
Netanyahu vowed to fight Hezbollah until Israelis displaced by the violence could return to their homes.
Since then, more than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and a million others have been displaced, according to Lebanese officials.
Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “complete and immediate ceasefire”.
In a visit to Baghdad ahead of Israel’s expected retaliation for Iran’s Oct. 1 missile attack on Israel, Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Tehran is “fully prepared for a war situation.”
He added: “We don’t want war.”
The Pentagon later said it would send a high-altitude anti-missile system and its US military crew to Israel to help the ally protect itself from possible Iranian attacks.
In northern Gaza, Israeli forces have besieged the Jabalia area for days, with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, saying the fighting was causing more suffering for hundreds of thousands of people trapped there.
“For more than a week there has been no hope, no water and no livelihood,” said 40-year-old local resident Muhammad Abu Halima.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)